GHSA-674p-xv2x-rf3g Litestar has potential log injection in exception logging

Not scored Published

Attackers can inject newlines into logs via URL paths in Litestar when exception logging is enabled, allowing log forging.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Not needed
Attackable
Over the internet
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is GHSA-674p-xv2x-rf3g?

GHSA-674p-xv2x-rf3g is a vulnerability in litestar, published on 11 Aug 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Summary

Litestar does not escape url paths when logging exceptions. This makes logger vulnerable to CRLF injection if logging level is configured to debug or log_exceptions is set to "always", which allows attackers to inject newlines and forge log entries.

Details

Litestar directly formats unquoted path into exception logs without validation or escaping when using default exception logging handler.

https://github.com/litestar-org/litestar/blob/1e0dc7c4d67151c836208a3e360051e983b5083a/litestar/logging/config.py#L145-L150

Attackers can inject newlines in logs by embedding%0d%0a in url path.

log_exceptions="always" is not enabled by default. However, it is set in the examples of documentation (https://github.com/litestar-org/litestar/blob/1e0dc7c4d67151c836208a3e360051e983b5083a/docs/usage/logging.rst#logging). User will be impacted if they directly copy the logging config from docs.

PoC

curl "http://172.17.0.2:8000/%29%0D%0AINFO:%20%20%20%20%20127.0.0.1:8192%20-%20%22POST%20/login%20HTTP/1.1%22%20200%20OK%0D%0A%28"

logging:

2025-07-15 00:00:00 - litestar - ERROR - Uncaught exception (connection_type=http, path=/)
INFO:     127.0.0.1:8192 - "POST /login HTTP/1.1" 200 OK
...

If stacktracks for 404 are configured to be ignored (disable_stack_trace={404},), attacker may also exploit this by sending malformed requests to cause 400/500 exceptions and avoid 404 in endpoints with str path parameters.

Which versions are affected by GHSA-674p-xv2x-rf3g?

2 open source packages ship an affected version, including litestar.

PackageAffectedFixed in
litestar PyPIAll versions2.17.0
litestar PyPIAll versions2.17.0

How do I fix GHSA-674p-xv2x-rf3g?

Upgrade litestar to 2.17.0 or later.

Is GHSA-674p-xv2x-rf3g being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of GHSA-674p-xv2x-rf3g in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

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